


The Song Sings Itself

by thrace



Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-09 04:12:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1968552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thrace/pseuds/thrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A continuation of the summer camp AU pirateygoodness and I created, and a sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1968519">Summer Is Where The Girls Go Barefoot</a>.</p>
<p>[archived from livejournal]</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Song Sings Itself

**Author's Note:**

> Carefully beta'd by pirateygoodness , who agrees with me that Cara also mows lawns in the summer, much to the delight of neighborhood cougars. Title is a quotation from William Carlos Williams.

This is not a date. 

Kahlan has to remind herself of that every so often as she alternates between staring through the open window of Cara's Mustang and at Cara herself. Cara is totally at ease, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the rolled down window, flyaways escaping from her ponytail to float around her face. Her aviators mostly hide her eyes but right underneath is her mouth, set in a lopsided smirk. Kahlan wonders if Cara learned it somewhere, or if she came out of the womb looking perpetually amused. 

Kahlan shifts on the old but well-maintained vinyl and tries not to fiddle with her hair, wishing for air conditioning so she could stop sticking to the bucket seat. The Runaways are blasting out over the radio, currently tuned to the local classic rock station. They can only pick up three stations out here and it's just good luck that this is one of them. Kahlan doesn't figure Cara for enjoying local sports talk radio or country, so for the moment Joan Jett snarls at them not to go away. 

They're just outside the town limits, Cara navigating confidently beyond the high school, the gas station, the scattered shotgun houses. Now they're flashing past harvested fields and as much as Kahlan likes being out here for the summer, she finds herself thinking of home, the sweet California coastline that she's loved as long as she can remember. Despite the air rushing through the car, sweat is already beading at her hairline and around the neck of her tank top. She's going to have to shower again tonight before she goes to bed, if she doesn't want to feel gross while she lies on top of her sheets. For her part, Cara looks like she was born for this kind of weather, perfectly at her ease in the streaming golden sunshine. 

Just before the highway on ramp, Cara slows down and they turn into the dirt parking lot of a run-down one story building. A row of motorcycles stands out front, gleaming in the midday sun, and Kahlan wonders if maybe she should've just stayed in town on her one day off this week, taking in a show at the multiplex and picking up some essentials at Wal-Mart. But after their night at the docks and nearly a week of silent, sweaty looks, she'd finally asked Cara to hang out. She's been trying to coax Cara into a multisyllabic conversation since they first kissed, so it's her own fault, really, that she's about to enter what is probably a criminal haven. 

Cara parks and lets the engine idle for a bit, turning her head and pushing her aviators up to look at Kahlan. "Sure you want to come in?" she asks. 

Kahlan shrugs, keeping it nonchalant. "You come here all the time, right?" She gets out before she can change her mind, closing the door so she can lean down and talk to Cara through the window, elbows braced on the window sill. "You can buy me a drink." She walks away, aware that she is in her shortest shorts and does her best to make them count. 

A door slam announces that Cara is following her, so she walks right into the bar without stopping. Inside she has to pause; the place is so dim that everything has a peculiar afterglow from the harsh sunlight. Cara stops just short of colliding with her, but it must be intentional, because she feels breasts brushing against her back and a hand skimming over her hip as Cara says, "Keep going." 

She moves forward, aware that almost everyone in the room is staring at them—mostly grizzled looking older guys, though there's a woman with teased up hair and a denim vest at the bar. No one asks for ID and Cara acts as though this is entirely normal. Slowly, people soak back into their pint glasses and resume their lazy conversations. 

Cara takes the lead now, slipping to the back of the bar where a pair of pool tables squats under low-hanging fluorescent lamps. She holds up two fingers to the lady at the bar, who nods like she knows what that means. Her aviators tug down the v of her shirt front, revealing two tantalizing curves of flesh. Kahlan is discovering that she's the kind of girl who sneaks peeks at cleavage--Cara's, anyway.

"How often do you come here?" Kahlan asks. She doesn't actually know a lot about Cara, other than what scant information Richard's told her. Sometimes Cara comes to the after-hours gatherings the counselors use to unwind, but during her off time, she's just as likely to disappear from the camp. She doesn't hang out with anyone but Richard, and even then she doesn't say much, but lurks sullenly in his vicinity. At mealtimes she sits by herself in the dining hall, occasionally reading from a book while she forks up Zedd's deluxe Hamburger Helper. 

Cara pulls a rack from a slot in the table closest to the rear exit, then fishes some quarters from her pocket and plunges the lever for the balls. "Often enough," she says. The balls come tumbling out and Cara starts arranging them in the rack, barely looking up when denim vest delivers two sweating beers to their table. 

"How much—" says Kahlan. 

"I'll settle the tab when we leave," says Cara. 

Kahlan wonders if Cara is planning on drinking enough to need a tab. One of them has to drive back. 

Cara gets the balls lined up with the speed of an old hand, nimble fingers separating stripes and solids, pressing them tightly into formation before delicately lifting the rack away. She grabs two cues, chalks the tip of one and hands it to Kahlan before chalking her own. "Want to break?" she asks. 

Kahlan looks at her hands, gripping the end of the cue. "I haven't played much." She expects a snort of disdain or a roll of the eyes, but what she gets is an easy smile. 

"Okay," Cara says. "I'll break." She settles the cue ball, bends over the edge of the table with her feet planted firmly, and lines up her stick. She makes a few testing thrusts, every part of her still except her arms, and Kahlan is content to lean back against the wall and watch her. Her eyes trace the bulge of Cara's wallet in her back pocket, the metallic glint of something else sticking up next to it. She pauses at the border where Cara's shorts meet flesh, then traipses down her thighs, her taught calves, and back up again—only to find Cara smirking over her shoulder. 

Kahlan's blush is fiercely evident, even in the dim lighting. "I thought you were breaking," she says. 

Cara does it without looking, eyes on Kahlan as her arm drives forward. The racked balls explode, caroming off the rails in a jumble until a solid drops into a side pocket. Cara slides around the table, hips tracing the edges as she turns the corner. She bends over again, hair falling into her eyes while she takes aim. This time she's gentle, giving the cue ball just enough energy to push the one into a corner pocket. She misses the next shot, and then she focuses on Kahlan, looking her over with something like clinical interest, but with such a wicked undertone that Kahlan starts to fidget. "Go ahead," she says. 

Kahlan tries to imitate Cara's posture, choosing a stripe that lingers close enough to a pocket to seem like an easy shot. She fumbles with her cue a little, trying to get it settled on her left hand, and that's when Cara sidles up and presses flush against her. She nearly jumps through the ceiling. 

"Relax," says Cara, her breath tickling the back of Kahlan's shoulder. The fine hairs there stand on end and she shivers. A warm hand on Kahlan's lower back encourages her to bend again, so she does, Cara pressing lightly against her. Cara's hands go over hers, showing her where to hold the cue, how to aim down its length. "Don't forget," Cara murmurs, "Follow through." She eases up, leaving a few inches of space between them. Kahlan wants to lean back into her, but she's wary of seeming needy with someone who prefers solitude, who has spoken a sum total of zero unnecessary words to other counselors not named Richard. 

Kahlan tightens her grip on the cue, her palms starting to slip a little on the lacquered wood. She pushes, firmly, and the cue hits the ten hits the corner pocket with a satisfying thud. She looks to her left, where Cara is grinning at her. She can't help herself; her head darts forward, bird quick, and she leaves a little peck on Cara's cheek. "Thanks," she says, even as Cara rears back in surprise. It's going to be a fun afternoon after all. 

* 

In the end, Kahlan gets slightly tipsy off of two-and-a-half beers, desperately trying to stay cool while the bar's ancient AC chugs along with little discernible effect. Cara doesn't drink much at all. She wins both games of pool handily, and then suggests that they should get something to eat. "Especially if you've been drinking on an empty stomach," she adds. 

Kahlan pouts at her, but sets her beer aside anyway. She circles Cara, letting her hand brush Cara's waistband, the small of her back. "Where do you want to go?" she asks. 

"Anywhere you want," says Cara coolly, but Kahlan can see the way her hands are wringing her cue. 

"Anywhere?" Kahlan repeats, and Cara twitches at the tone of her voice. 

Thirty minutes later they're parked in someone's field, under a solitary oak tree. Cara had scoffed at questions about private property and driven right onto the land, following a dirt road bisecting a ripening corn field. They have a couple of sandwiches and some bottled water, and Cara's iPod plugged into the little sound dock she keeps in the trunk. They're sitting on the hood, Kahlan with her face turned up to the sunlight filtering through the leaves, Cara efficiently devouring her spicy turkey sandwich while Elliott Smith whisper-croons behind them. 

"I like this song," says Kahlan, her feet nearly dangling off the edge of the hood, her hands folded behind her head. Her sandwich is mostly untouched. Beer or no, she isn't very hungry. There's a languorous heaviness to her body, a sense of awareness of herself. She is acutely aware of the hot hood under her legs, the sunwarmed glass curving against her back, the slight dig of the windshield wipers in her bottom. 

Cara just chews and watches her with that slightly unsettling, unblinking regard. 

Kahlan decides that maybe silence is her best option for a while, at least while Cara is eating. She has to admit, after Zedd's cooking three meals a day, six days in a row, it's nice to have something that wasn't mass-produced in a giant pot. Her first stop after camp is over is going to be Whole Foods, that's for sure. 

Cara finally finishes her sandwich, neatly folds up the wrapper, and chugs down half her water. Kahlan watches her throat work as she drinks, the sleek play of muscles, the strong line of her chin. Cara catches her again, for what feels like the hundredth time, and she's tired of looking away so she doesn't. Cara doesn't seem to care—just offers that leonine grin, and lies half on her side with careless grace. 

Whether it's an invitation or not, Kahlan takes it, and slides across the hood. She angles her head low, pausing so Cara knows what's coming, and then presses a soft kiss to her neck. She rubs her nose against Cara's jawline, just below her ear. When she pulls back Cara looks dazed, as though Kahlan has just done something astonishing. "You okay?" Kahlan asks, mostly watching Cara's mouth, the way her lips are barely parted. She hasn't been able to stop thinking about Cara's mouth since that night—if she's honest with herself, since the first week of camp, when she saw Cara eating a soft-serve cone in the dining hall. 

"Fine," Cara says. She pushes Kahlan back, shifts half her body on top of Kahlan's so that their bare legs naturally interlock. "Are you still drunk?" 

Kahlan's mouth opens in mock indignation, and she gives Cara a light slap on the arm. "I was never drunk." 

Cara laughs, suddenly at her ease again, and nibbles on Kahlan's neck, the exact same spot she'd chosen for Cara. It tickles, makes Kahlan squirm, but Cara keeps her in place with her body. She doesn't know what to make of this playfulness, the way Cara seems to be holding herself to light teasing. In the bar she'd almost expected Cara to push her against the table, to take her right there. There's something positively indecent in her eyes every time they look at each other, but today it's like she's purposefully checking herself, capping off her ardor. 

Kahlan kisses her neck again, this time with more intent. Her tongue traces Cara's pulse, and her teeth leave delicate little impressions on her skin. Cara's hips press against hers, just the slightest tilt forward that makes Kahlan want more. She snakes her arms under Cara's, resting her hands against Cara's back, where she pulls, increasing the pressure until Cara accedes and lowers her full length against Kahlan. Kahlan is already lifting her head, meeting Cara's mouth, and she nearly sighs with relief. It's as good as she remembers—Cara's lips, lush and ripe, her tongue sweeping over Kahlan's, her hands digging into Kahlan's waist. She pushes up Kahlan's tank top, just enough to reveal a hand's span of skin, the pads of her thumbs skating over the jut of Kahlan's pelvis. 

Even though they're in the shade, Kahlan starts to sweat, and eventually she starts sliding down the hood despite Cara's best efforts to keep pulling her up. She breaks off their kiss and before Cara can even form a pout she says, "Back seat." 

Cara hops off the hood with an athletic little bounce and even holds the door for Kahlan, but doesn't follow her into the back right away. Kahlan is sitting with her legs stretched out and her head ducked so she can see what Cara's doing, but Cara's still cut off above the chin. Which suddenly becomes irrelevant, because she's slowly peeling her shirt up, revealing her smooth stomach and a plain black bra that is still amazingly hot. She's wearing some kind of pendant underneath and the silver disc hangs distractingly between her breasts, sticking to her skin a little. The shirt is discarded on the ground and Cara finally climbs in, straddling Kahlan's legs. 

Kahlan's hands are immediately drawn to Cara's bare torso. She runs them up and down, sometimes skimming over the fine hairs, sometimes not-quite scoring the skin with her fingertips. Cara scoots closer, until they're chest-to-chest and her head is right above Kahlan's. The pendant hangs around eye level for Kahlan and up close she can see it's a St. Christopher's medal. She wants to ask about it, but then Cara tilts Kahlan's head up with both hands and kisses her, hard and demanding. There's nothing for it but to reach for the button of Cara's shorts. 

*

This is the third summer in a row that Kahlan has worked at Camp Midlands; she expected to spend six weeks in the Sierra Nevada in the usual way--enjoying her cabin group, picking up new freckles in the sun, partying with the other counselors. She did not expect to end up in the back of a '70 Mustang with Cara Mason, riding her hand to an intense orgasm. Cara has three fingers inside of her and is using her tongue to do interesting things to Kahlan's breasts and it's all a complete sensory overload. She's always thought of back seats as a place for sticky, inept fumblings, but obviously that was before she had Cara biting all her soft places and pressing a thumb to her clit.

She doubles over, clenching tight around Cara's hand, moaning right into Cara's ear. For a minute it's all she can do not to slither to the floor, letting her forehead rest against Cara's while she breathes out the tension. Cara holds her up, arms wrapped around her waist, and she finds herself liking the solidity of Cara's embrace. She feels safe, adored, as though she is Cara's only point of focus. But they're still in a cramped rear seat and it's still oppressively hot outside, and they've been enthusiastically generating enough friction to bring a semi to a screeching halt. "We should get back," she says. 

Cara lets her head fall back onto the top edge of the seat, her eyes roaming up from Kahlan's chin to her lips, her nose, her eyes. "I thought this was your day off." 

"It is," says Kahlan. "But I feel gross and I need to take a shower." 

"You look good to me," says Cara, hands encroaching on Kahlan's breasts with obvious intent. 

Kahlan stops her, albeit with a smile. "Come on. Let's at least go into town and get some ice cream." 

Cara seems to struggle with herself, eyes flicking around the car's interior until they finally settle on Kahlan's hands, gently restraining Cara by the wrists. "Okay," she says. 

Kahlan is just climbing off of her when they hear the rumble of a truck. Kahlan peers out of the rear window and sees a large pickup heading directly for them. "Uh oh," she says. "How did you say you found this place again?" 

Cara scrambles into the front seat, twists the keys in the ignition, and peels out, throwing rooster tails of dirt from her wheels. "Is he following us?" she asks, even as she looks in the rearview mirror. 

Kahlan, who has ducked down, pokes her head up to check for pursuit. She watches the truck lag behind and, finally, come to a halt. "Not anymore." 

Cara makes a satisfied sound, but keeps accelerating. Kahlan clambers up into the passenger seat, already pulling her shirt back on and retrieving her shorts from the car floor where Cara discarded them. "Are we going to get ice cream?" Kahlan asks. 

For a moment Cara is silent, focusing on driving. They return to the highway and once they're on asphalt, Cara drops the Mustang into third gear and the car shoots forward like a horse given free reign. Her aviators are somehow back on her nose, and her medallion glints in the flashing sunlight. It draws attention to Cara's bra, still slightly askew from having Kahlan's hands twisting through it. "I did say anywhere you want," Cara replies. 

"Anywhere we want," Kahlan corrects her, and Cara glances sharply to her right. It's only for half a second, barely long enough for Kahlan to catch the expression on her face, but she gets an impression of uneasiness. 

Then Cara brings them up to fourth gear and they're flying now, speeding so outlandishly past the 60 mph limit that Kahlan can't help but feel exhilarated. "I go where you go," says Cara, one hand confidently guiding the wheel, the other brushing Kahlan's thigh on its way to the shifter. 

Kahlan is charmed enough by this statement to lean over and kiss Cara's cheek for the second time today. She's amused by how skittish it seems to make Cara, and resolves to keep it in reserve for when Cara needs unnerving; Cara throws her off-balance often enough, and it's nice to know that she can gain the upper hand from time to time, if she wants. "Then I'm going to Dale's for a fruit smoothie." 

They ride in companionable silence a few miles longer until a thought occurs to Kahlan. "Where's your shirt?" she asks. 

Cara's grin is so rakish that Kahlan laughs, the wind grabbing the sound through the open window and sending it tumbling into the summer sky.


End file.
